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If you’ve ever wished you could message a friend directly in YouTube instead of bouncing to WhatsApp or Instagram, you might soon get your wish. YouTube is quietly testing built-in direct messaging, starting in two countries for now.
After years of pushing users toward public comments and Community posts, the platform is testing a DM revival in Ireland and Poland, though you must be 18 or older to access the feature, as per YouTube’s support page. To get started, tap the notification bell on any long-form video, Short, or live stream. Then, hit “Invite others to share videos,” and you can send an invite to another user. Once the recipient accepts, the conversation kicks off. If they’d rather not, they can decline.
You can also block or report someone if the chat gets messy. Messages aren’t fully private, though, as YouTube notes that they “may be reviewed” for Community Guidelines issues, so this isn’t aiming to replace your favorite messaging apps like WhatsApp or Signal.
A separate YouTube support page notes that invite links expire seven days after they’re created. So, make sure you’ve turned on notifications for YouTube to get notified when someone sends you a chat invite in the app.
You can also just hit the Share button under any video and pick who you want to send it to, or tap “Invite to share on YouTube” if you need to invite them first.
This isn’t YouTube’s first rodeo with DMs. The platform launched an in-app messaging system between 2017 and 2019 but eventually shut it down, arguing that the platform needed to prioritize public discussion, as 9to5Google points out. That was before TikTok rewired how people discover and share content and before short-form clips became a core part of social conversation.
Fast-forward to today, and YouTube clearly doesn’t want to keep losing those share-and-react moments to other apps. For viewers, the immediate benefit is simply less friction. Instead of copying a link, jumping into a separate chat app, and then diving back into YouTube, you’d be able to keep the discussion right where you found the video.
For creators and brands, this feature could help build small communities, share exclusive content, and encourage more personal interactions without relying on other platforms. However, the privacy trade-off is important, and YouTube’s monitoring policy may affect whether people use or avoid the feature.
What happens next will depend on how users react in the next few months. YouTube hasn’t promised to launch this feature worldwide; for now, it’s just a trial to see how things go.
